ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 15,011
|
Post by ericn on Jun 28, 2022 21:26:46 GMT -6
Didn't we just go over all of this on another thread? Or 2, or3, or4……
|
|
|
Post by seawell on Jun 28, 2022 21:37:50 GMT -6
I hear ya, and agree with this particular summing mixer. I'm just saying if you're going to make a video with a definitive statement like "analog summing makes absolutely no difference" then you owe it to yourself and your viewers not to cut corners. If somethings worth doing it's worth doing right. Otherwise it just seems like more of this click bait YouTube trend. I think you are missing the point. The test was to show that act of summing itself does not improve or change the audio when done in an analog domain. Of course it is going to sound different if you have transformers and amps in the signal path, which pretty much all summing boxes do unless specifically designed not too like the one he was using. Which I thought he made pretty clear. Even most passive summing mixers you use a micpre to make up the gain, which probably is a color mic pre. So of course it'll sound different. So his test was just to prove the summing...as in combining audio signals...in the analog domain does nothing sonically different than summing in the box. Which he proved. If the test was done with say a Capi Sumbus which has input transformers on every channel and discrete op amps and output transformers and DOAs it sound way different but not because it's summing the signal but because you suddenly injected at a minimum 4 transformers and 4 DOA for a stereo stem or up to 34 transformers and 34 DOA into the signal path. I'm not missing the point. I'm just saying I don't think it was a point well made. Especially cutting a bunch of corners to handicap it in the favor of the point you're trying to make. Who ever thought just summing did anything of note? Summing was only a part of the box you were buying. I've never seen someone that invested in a summing mixer that thought otherwise.
|
|
ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 15,011
|
Post by ericn on Jun 28, 2022 21:46:39 GMT -6
The answer is simply this, now repeat after me, WE LIKE DISTORTION!!
|
|
|
Post by bgrotto on Jun 28, 2022 21:47:20 GMT -6
Just poppin by to let y'all know that after considerable scientific testing, Macintosh computers are *definitely* superior to Windows machines.
|
|
|
Post by seawell on Jun 28, 2022 21:57:03 GMT -6
Just poppin by to let y'all know that after considerable scientific testing, Macintosh computers are *definitely* superior to Windows machines. Haha no arguments from me here!
|
|
|
Post by notneeson on Jun 28, 2022 22:07:23 GMT -6
I think you are missing the point. The test was to show that act of summing itself does not improve or change the audio when done in an analog domain. Of course it is going to sound different if you have transformers and amps in the signal path, which pretty much all summing boxes do unless specifically designed not too like the one he was using. Which I thought he made pretty clear. Even most passive summing mixers you use a micpre to make up the gain, which probably is a color mic pre. So of course it'll sound different. So his test was just to prove the summing...as in combining audio signals...in the analog domain does nothing sonically different than summing in the box. Which he proved. If the test was done with say a Capi Sumbus which has input transformers on every channel and discrete op amps and output transformers and DOAs it sound way different but not because it's summing the signal but because you suddenly injected at a minimum 4 transformers and 4 DOA for a stereo stem or up to 34 transformers and 34 DOA into the signal path. I'm not missing the point. I'm just saying I don't think it was a point well made. Especially cutting a bunch of corners to handicap it in the favor of the point you're trying to make. Who ever thought just summing did anything of note? Summing was only a part of the box you were buying. I've never seen someone that invested in a summing mixer that thought otherwise. The history of all this is kinda convoluted— a very clean (and early, possibly first to market) external summing mixer like the original Dangerous actually did improve the sound of an ITB mix on an HD Accel rig (the industry standard of its day) because the limits of the fixed point summing architecture were not well understood at that time. It's actually really easy to make that mixer sound bad if you're also trying to "use all the bits" as was the fashion coming out of the ADAT era. Take that same approach to HD land and things could sound crappy in a hurry. Correlation equals causation, therefore ITB summing must be broken. And so on and so forth.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2022 22:19:24 GMT -6
The answer is simply this, now repeat after me, WE LIKE DISTORTION!! Good distortion. Not plasticky almost clean but not clean distortion whether it comes from hardware or plugs. we are the industry that when people got computers that could run multiple plugins made vintage warmer, blockfish, inflator, and sausage fattener: Dan
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2022 22:37:03 GMT -6
I'm not missing the point. I'm just saying I don't think it was a point well made. Especially cutting a bunch of corners to handicap it in the favor of the point you're trying to make. Who ever thought just summing did anything of note? Summing was only a part of the box you were buying. I've never seen someone that invested in a summing mixer that thought otherwise. The history of all this is kinda convoluted— a very clean (and early, possibly first to market) external summing mixer like the original Dangerous actually did improve the sound of an ITB mix on an HD Accel rig (the industry standard of its day) because the limits of the fixed point summing architecture were not well understood at that time. It's actually really easy to make that mixer sound bad if you're also trying to "use all the bits" as was the fashion coming out of the ADAT era. Take that same approach to HD land and things could sound crappy in a hurry. Correlation equals causation, therefore ITB summing must be broken. And so on and so forth. yeah and of course even in a dangerous d-box, all of the amplification stages add distortion and dangerous gear, along with all mic pres, have a "sound" and that "sound" is distortion. even if dan worral's passive summing mixer was hitting a converter, that in itself will inherently add distortion so it better be cool sounding like a lavry or burl or something. also the passive summer can AVOID distortion by not having to hit the converter multiple times through hardware inserts on busses and sum that distortion in the box. or you can use a better stereo converter rather than the designed for costs and heat multichannel ones. Dan
|
|
|
Post by seawell on Jun 28, 2022 23:04:06 GMT -6
The history of all this is kinda convoluted— a very clean (and early, possibly first to market) external summing mixer like the original Dangerous actually did improve the sound of an ITB mix on an HD Accel rig (the industry standard of its day) because the limits of the fixed point summing architecture were not well understood at that time. It's actually really easy to make that mixer sound bad if you're also trying to "use all the bits" as was the fashion coming out of the ADAT era. Take that same approach to HD land and things could sound crappy in a hurry. Correlation equals causation, therefore ITB summing must be broken. And so on and so forth. yeah and of course even in a dangerous d-box, all of the amplification stages add distortion and dangerous gear, along with all mic pres, have a "sound" and that "sound" is distortion. even if dan worral's passive summing mixer was hitting a converter, that in itself will inherently add distortion so it better be cool sounding like a lavry or burl or something. also the passive summer can AVOID distortion by not having to hit the converter multiple times through hardware inserts on busses and sum that distortion in the box. or you can use a better stereo converter rather than the designed for costs and heat multichannel ones. Dan He used behringer conversion in that video for what it's worth. By the way the d/a and monitoring section alone of the original d-box was worth the price of admission! I did a lot of great work on that little box.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2022 23:09:27 GMT -6
yeah and of course even in a dangerous d-box, all of the amplification stages add distortion and dangerous gear, along with all mic pres, have a "sound" and that "sound" is distortion. even if dan worral's passive summing mixer was hitting a converter, that in itself will inherently add distortion so it better be cool sounding like a lavry or burl or something. also the passive summer can AVOID distortion by not having to hit the converter multiple times through hardware inserts on busses and sum that distortion in the box. or you can use a better stereo converter rather than the designed for costs and heat multichannel ones. Dan He used behringer conversion in that video for what it's worth. By the way the d/a and monitoring section alone of the original d-box was worth the price of admission! I did a lot of great work on that little box. yeah an x32. gross future electronic waste yeah the og d-box was awesome and it was dirt cheap used for a long time!
|
|
|
Post by christopher on Jun 28, 2022 23:12:00 GMT -6
It just seemed to me the video creator made up his mind and then picked the worst example of summing I can think of(passive) to prove said point. It's like if I said analog gear makes no difference and used all Behringer(no offense) to prove my point. Wouldn't the video be more interesting if you used something like a Burl Vancouver? Even then, you have to mix into it. If you just took an ITB mix and stemmed it out through the Burl, it might not be the right color but it certainly wouldn't null! Anyway...I have a Dangerous 2 Bus...I like it...I mix better/faster through it so... 🤷🏻♂️. He said he let the unit warm up. And you can clearly hear power supply noise in the residuals of the null. Pretty positive that it's an active summing unit. He did the test just fine. The summing portion doesn't add the mythical euphonics it's supposed to and his purpose was to debunk that. He said so in the video. He also said all bets were off if transformers were in the chain, etc. If you use transformers, or other distortion adding devices, of course it'll be different, I don't think there's any epiphanies there and I don't think it has anything to do with his video. I thought I was done talking about this 🤣 I do agree I don’t just grab a splitter wire from each output on an AD converter output and then record that on the AD. Why bother? I think that’s what he’s trying to prove? So why didn’t he just do that? It’s a deeper argument he’s trying to make: he’s trying to say a handbuilt device is snake oil, while a mass produced device like a Behringer converter will save you from being conned. It’s despicable, and gross. Besides the nulls don’t null. Show me when they can null no signal to the bit floor., then I’ll agree.
|
|
|
Post by Blackdawg on Jun 29, 2022 0:22:27 GMT -6
I think you are missing the point. The test was to show that act of summing itself does not improve or change the audio when done in an analog domain. Of course it is going to sound different if you have transformers and amps in the signal path, which pretty much all summing boxes do unless specifically designed not too like the one he was using. Which I thought he made pretty clear. Even most passive summing mixers you use a micpre to make up the gain, which probably is a color mic pre. So of course it'll sound different. So his test was just to prove the summing...as in combining audio signals...in the analog domain does nothing sonically different than summing in the box. Which he proved. If the test was done with say a Capi Sumbus which has input transformers on every channel and discrete op amps and output transformers and DOAs it sound way different but not because it's summing the signal but because you suddenly injected at a minimum 4 transformers and 4 DOA for a stereo stem or up to 34 transformers and 34 DOA into the signal path. I'm not missing the point. I'm just saying I don't think it was a point well made. Especially cutting a bunch of corners to handicap it in the favor of the point you're trying to make. Who ever thought just summing did anything of note? Summing was only a part of the box you were buying. I've never seen someone that invested in a summing mixer that thought otherwise. Plenty of online "wizards" and "masters" have been saying for years that analog summing is best. This was just to prove that the summing isn't the magic. It's all the other stuff. That is the point. He said he let the unit warm up. And you can clearly hear power supply noise in the residuals of the null. Pretty positive that it's an active summing unit. He did the test just fine. The summing portion doesn't add the mythical euphonics it's supposed to and his purpose was to debunk that. He said so in the video. He also said all bets were off if transformers were in the chain, etc. If you use transformers, or other distortion adding devices, of course it'll be different, I don't think there's any epiphanies there and I don't think it has anything to do with his video. I thought I was done talking about this 🤣 I do agree I don’t just grab a splitter wire from each output on an AD converter output and then record that on the AD. Why bother? I think that’s what he’s trying to prove? So why didn’t he just do that? It’s a deeper argument he’s trying to make: he’s trying to say a handbuilt device is snake oil, while a mass produced device like a Behringer converter will save you from being conned. It’s despicable, and gross. Besides the nulls don’t null. Show me when they can null no signal to the bit floor., then I’ll agree. Not possible since the digital versions noise floor will always be so much lower. Thats why the noise that's left is just the analog noise floor of the device he was using. No audio was left cause it nulled. I don't get why you don't understand that...Svart explained. I've explained it. Dan Worrall explained it. This video is pretty cut and dry on it's purpose and how he did it. Proved his point. Summing mixers aren't "useless" or stupid or something. He's just saying the summing part is not the magic secret sauce anyone thinks they need. Its the transformers. Which begs the question, why bother summing? Just use a Silver Bullet. And thats why the Silver Bullet even exists in its current form. Thats all. It's not that complicated.... Again, I still want a Sumbus because mixing into it from the start(for the right tracks) will be amazing I'm sure. Cause it's a ton of transformers and circuits. Not cause the actually summing is doing a better job than my computer could. But whatever.
|
|
|
Post by seawell on Jun 29, 2022 0:40:30 GMT -6
I'm not missing the point. I'm just saying I don't think it was a point well made. Especially cutting a bunch of corners to handicap it in the favor of the point you're trying to make. Who ever thought just summing did anything of note? Summing was only a part of the box you were buying. I've never seen someone that invested in a summing mixer that thought otherwise. Plenty of online "wizards" and "masters" have been saying for years that analog summing is best. This was just to prove that the summing isn't the magic. It's all the other stuff. That is the point. I thought I was done talking about this 🤣 I do agree I don’t just grab a splitter wire from each output on an AD converter output and then record that on the AD. Why bother? I think that’s what he’s trying to prove? So why didn’t he just do that? It’s a deeper argument he’s trying to make: he’s trying to say a handbuilt device is snake oil, while a mass produced device like a Behringer converter will save you from being conned. It’s despicable, and gross. Besides the nulls don’t null. Show me when they can null no signal to the bit floor., then I’ll agree. Not possible since the digital versions noise floor will always be so much lower. Thats why the noise that's left is just the analog noise floor of the device he was using. No audio was left cause it nulled. I don't get why you don't understand that...Svart explained. I've explained it. Dan Worrall explained it. This video is pretty cut and dry on it's purpose and how he did it. Proved his point. Summing mixers aren't "useless" or stupid or something. He's just saying the summing part is not the magic secret sauce anyone thinks they need. Its the transformers. Which begs the question, why bother summing? Just use a Silver Bullet. And thats why the Silver Bullet even exists in its current form. Thats all. It's not that complicated.... Again, I still want a Sumbus because mixing into it from the start(for the right tracks) will be amazing I'm sure. Cause it's a ton of transformers and circuits. Not cause the actually summing is doing a better job than my computer could. But whatever. Well I guess I've done a good job of avoiding these wizards because I haven't come across such nonsense.
|
|
|
Post by seawell on Jun 29, 2022 0:58:02 GMT -6
He said he let the unit warm up. And you can clearly hear power supply noise in the residuals of the null. Pretty positive that it's an active summing unit. He did the test just fine. The summing portion doesn't add the mythical euphonics it's supposed to and his purpose was to debunk that. He said so in the video. He also said all bets were off if transformers were in the chain, etc. If you use transformers, or other distortion adding devices, of course it'll be different, I don't think there's any epiphanies there and I don't think it has anything to do with his video. I thought I was done talking about this 🤣 I do agree I don’t just grab a splitter wire from each output on an AD converter output and then record that on the AD. Why bother? I think that’s what he’s trying to prove? So why didn’t he just do that? It’s a deeper argument he’s trying to make: he’s trying to say a handbuilt device is snake oil, while a mass produced device like a Behringer converter will save you from being conned. It’s despicable, and gross. Besides the nulls don’t null. Show me when they can null no signal to the bit floor., then I’ll agree. It's not lost on me the fact that it didn't null the first time he tried. It would be interesting if someone took the time and proper effort to counter this test 🤔
|
|
|
Post by thehightenor on Jun 29, 2022 1:20:03 GMT -6
yeah I think this is a great video that showcases that really its the nolinear aspects of a summing box that make it great. Not just the summing itself. Which is really just resistors or can just be that anyways. Which all the more to me at least means if you want a summing box get a colorful one. Otherwise, there is no point. I think the point is, the colorful box can just be on your stereo bus as the summing is adding zip. Nada. Zilch. Nothing! It also explains why when I have demoed a few summing units that I got the same result whether I used all 16 channels or just two. That's why I've ended up with color boxes on my stereo bus and also of course at the tracking stage. I trust Dan Worrall he's a very bright cookie who really knows his stuff on a technical level way, way higher than mine. One area I can see the use of an SSL Sigma or a Neve 8424 etc is for the workflow of adding hardware in a hybrid setting, but that's a huge expense just for workflow, but some folk can afford these things and that's more than fair enough if it helps them get work done quicker and of course they appreciate the color they impart even if it's not the summing per say that's contributing.
|
|
|
Post by allbuttonmode on Jun 29, 2022 3:04:04 GMT -6
I like my CAPI SumBus.
|
|
|
Post by stevenlmorgan on Jun 29, 2022 4:53:27 GMT -6
I do my own daily comparisons. You’ll not pry my customized Pueblo HJ482s from my hands.
I’ve pretty much built a custom Pueblo mixer and would love to add the final pieces this year.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 29, 2022 6:27:54 GMT -6
I thought I was done talking about this 🤣 I do agree I don’t just grab a splitter wire from each output on an AD converter output and then record that on the AD. Why bother? I think that’s what he’s trying to prove? So why didn’t he just do that? It’s a deeper argument he’s trying to make: he’s trying to say a handbuilt device is snake oil, while a mass produced device like a Behringer converter will save you from being conned. It’s despicable, and gross. Besides the nulls don’t null. Show me when they can null no signal to the bit floor., then I’ll agree. It's not lost on me the fact that it didn't null the first time he tried. It would be interesting if someone took the time and proper effort to counter this test 🤔 You miss the point. The fact that it can null completely at any point is the takeaway. If it was different at all it would never null at any point under any test.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 29, 2022 6:31:56 GMT -6
He said he let the unit warm up. And you can clearly hear power supply noise in the residuals of the null. Pretty positive that it's an active summing unit. He did the test just fine. The summing portion doesn't add the mythical euphonics it's supposed to and his purpose was to debunk that. He said so in the video. He also said all bets were off if transformers were in the chain, etc. If you use transformers, or other distortion adding devices, of course it'll be different, I don't think there's any epiphanies there and I don't think it has anything to do with his video. I thought I was done talking about this 🤣 I do agree I don’t just grab a splitter wire from each output on an AD converter output and then record that on the AD. Why bother? I think that’s what he’s trying to prove? So why didn’t he just do that? It’s a deeper argument he’s trying to make: he’s trying to say a handbuilt device is snake oil, while a mass produced device like a Behringer converter will save you from being conned. It’s despicable, and gross. Besides the nulls don’t null. Show me when they can null no signal to the bit floor., then I’ll agree. That's not what he's saying at all. He just wants to show that the action of analog summing doesn't add any of the mythical "betterness" that it's generally attributed. You can read the transcripts on YouTube if you don't want to watch through the video to understand that.
|
|
|
Post by javamad on Jun 29, 2022 6:45:58 GMT -6
I did summing for a few years and while I was certainly adding vibe with outboard compressors etc, I will confess to have held the view that “voltage on copper” summing had to be doing something too.
I think I stand corrected on that.
I am certainly looking forward to LUNA getting latency compensated channel inserts ..
That said … this video also throws some light on LUNA Neve and API summing (which I like) … and of course they are not modelling bare copper but rather transformers and op amps
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Jun 29, 2022 7:36:46 GMT -6
I did summing for a few years and while I was certainly adding vibe with outboard compressors etc, I will confess to have held the view that “voltage on copper” summing had to be doing something too. I think I stand corrected on that. I am certainly looking forward to LUNA getting latency compensated channel inserts .. That said … this video also throws some light on LUNA Neve and API summing (which I like) … and of course they are not modelling bare copper but rather transformers and op amps Yeah, once hardware inserts becomes a reality with Luna, I will likely get another Apollo(s) and changeover the normalling in my patchbays from Apollos being normalled to my console to, instead, having the Apollos normalled to my outboard gear so that I don't even have to patch anything in. Add all of that in with the sort of integrated console emulation thing that UA has going on inside Luna, and it could be a pretty cool setup.
|
|
|
Post by notneeson on Jun 29, 2022 8:14:17 GMT -6
yeah and of course even in a dangerous d-box, all of the amplification stages add distortion and dangerous gear, along with all mic pres, have a "sound" and that "sound" is distortion. even if dan worral's passive summing mixer was hitting a converter, that in itself will inherently add distortion so it better be cool sounding like a lavry or burl or something. also the passive summer can AVOID distortion by not having to hit the converter multiple times through hardware inserts on busses and sum that distortion in the box. or you can use a better stereo converter rather than the designed for costs and heat multichannel ones. Dan He used behringer conversion in that video for what it's worth. By the way the d/a and monitoring section alone of the original d-box was worth the price of admission! I did a lot of great work on that little box. Yep, I still own mine. Still sounds great as described. 👍 PS, to be super clear, conversion is not relevant to the issue I was surfacing with older versions of PT HD, but maybe you’re just heaping scorn on Behringer, which I get. 😀
|
|
|
Post by ragan on Jun 29, 2022 10:18:34 GMT -6
Haven’t watched the video but if its conclusion is correct, it would suggest that just running individual tracks through console/summing mixer-like analog signal paths one at a time would net the same result as using the console/summing mixer. Speaking strictly sonically, not workflow wise.
|
|
|
Post by EmRR on Jun 29, 2022 10:27:21 GMT -6
Haven’t watched the video but if its conclusion is correct, it would suggest that just running individual tracks through console/summing mixer-like analog signal paths one at a time would net the same result as using the console/summing mixer. Speaking strictly sonically, not workflow wise. On occasions I take in outside tracks for mixing, I frequently take them to outboard and print the processing, use that instead. Not that long ago there was a definite sonic penalty, now it’s small if at all.
|
|
|
Post by ragan on Jun 29, 2022 10:29:41 GMT -6
Haven’t watched the video but if its conclusion is correct, it would suggest that just running individual tracks through console/summing mixer-like analog signal paths one at a time would net the same result as using the console/summing mixer. Speaking strictly sonically, not workflow wise. On occasions I take in outside tracks for mixing, I frequently take them to outboard and print the processing, use that instead. Not that long ago there was a definite sonic penalty, now it’s small if at all. Yeah I print just about every track through hardware. I like it and it sounds better. But I’m just making music for myself with no deadlines or hourly rate to take into account or anything.
|
|